On the third day after returning from the Sun Star, Taiyi finally sensed that something was wrong.
It was not his body—his body was in excellent condition. The Chaos True Sun Fire burned fiercely within his dantian, and his mana was so abundant it was nearly overflowing. Nor was it his state of mind. Though the calamity hung over his head like a blade, these past few days had instead calmed him, leaving him with a resigned feeling that whatever was coming would come.
It was the Chaos Bell that was wrong.
Ever since the day he returned, this bell had been somewhat... restless.
Taiyi sat cross-legged on the couch, regulating his breath with his eyes closed, while his divine sense remained fixed on the bell inside his dantian. The Chaos Bell hovered there, looking no different from usual: an ancient, dark-yellow bell body, three dim rings of sun patterns, and a vague layer of dark red around its edges.
Yet every so often, it gave a slight tremble.
It was not the vibration of being struck, but something subtler, a shiver from the inside out. As if something deep within the bell had turned over in its sleep, or let out a burp. The tremors came at regular intervals, about once every half hour, each lasting around three breaths.
At first, Taiyi paid it no mind, assuming it had yet to fully stabilize after refining the baleful blood. But after three days, not only had the disturbance failed to stop, it had grown increasingly obvious.
That afternoon, while he was leafing through dust-covered ancient texts in his study, the Chaos Bell suddenly shook—this time so violently that the bamboo scroll in his hand nearly fell to the floor.
"What exactly do you want?" Taiyi asked softly as he placed the scroll back on the shelf.
Inside his dantian, the bell went still again.
Taiyi frowned, walked to the couch, and sat down. His divine sense sank into his body and went directly before the Chaos Bell. He circled the bell once, examining it carefully. It was still the same bell, yet he could not shake the feeling that... something was different.
He reached out a hand—naturally, one condensed from divine sense—and lightly touched the bell.
It was cold.
Yet beneath that coldness lay a faint warmth. It was so faint that it was nearly impossible to detect, but Taiyi felt it. This was not the warmth of the True Sun Fire, but another kind—more primordial, more chaotic.
He recalled the bell's ravenous hunger when it devoured that demon god essence blood while refining the baleful blood. At the time, its body had been scorching hot, so hot that even his Primordial Spirit had trembled. The heat had later faded, but that feeling of it having "come alive" remained.
"Could it be that you..." Taiyi hesitated. "Are about to awaken?"
The bell gave no response.
Taiyi stared at it for a long while. Then a thought struck him, and he tried sending a thread of mana into the bell. It was an extremely thin thread, like a drop of water falling into the sea. By all rights, it should have vanished without a sound.
But the Chaos Bell suddenly shuddered!
This tremor was more violent than any before it. The three rings of sun patterns on its surface lit up at once, their golden light dazzling. The dark-red layer around its edges also seemed to come alive, beginning to flow and whirl like blood dispersing in water. A deep hum came from within the bell—not the sound of it being struck from outside, but a resonance from its depths, from its core.
Taiyi's heart tightened. Just as he was about to withdraw his divine sense, a vast consciousness slammed into his mind!
It was not a sound, nor an image, but something more direct and overbearing: raw knowing.
"Baleful..."
A single broken, indistinct syllable, like a bubble rising from the depths of the sea.
Then came more fragments, crashing into him in chaotic disorder:
"Ten... ten thousand kinds..."
"Nurture... bell..."
"Hungry..."
"Restore..."
The information came too fast and too chaotically, battering Taiyi's Primordial Spirit until it buzzed. He gritted his teeth, steadied his mind, and focused all his strength on receiving those fragments. They churned and pieced themselves together within his consciousness, gradually revealing a vague meaning—
The Chaos Bell needed baleful energy.
A great deal of baleful energy, all kinds of it. Ten thousand types? Perhaps even more. It needed to be nourished with this baleful energy before it could be "restored," before it could... do what?
The fragments ended there.
That enormous consciousness receded like a tide, arriving suddenly and leaving just as decisively. The Chaos Bell fell silent once more. The light on its body dimmed, and the humming vanished. It was as if that disturbance had exhausted all its strength, sending it back to sleep.
Taiyi panted, his forehead drenched in cold sweat.
He opened his eyes. The bedchamber was dim, and at some point, the sky outside had already turned dark. Lamps had lit up in the distant palaces, their murky yellow glow passing through the window lattice and casting blurred squares across the floor.
He leaned against the couch, staring into the darkness, while his mind continued to hum.
Ten thousand kinds of baleful energy.
That was... quite the demand.
There was no shortage of baleful energy in the Great Wilderness. Battlefields, ancient battlegrounds, murderous lands, perilous regions—it was everywhere. But baleful energy differed from one kind to another, just as people differed from one another. Battlefield baleful energy was violent, blood baleful energy was sinister and poisonous, resentment baleful energy was thick and clinging, earth-vein baleful energy was heavy, stellar baleful energy was ethereal... If one truly examined them in detail, there were far more than ten thousand varieties.
The key question was, what did the Chaos Bell want baleful energy for?
Taiyi could not understand. This bell was an Innate Supreme Treasure, formed from the Pangu Axe. It was majestic, upright, and grand. It should have been utterly incompatible with sinister, filthy things like baleful energy. Yet now it said it wanted it—not only that, it wanted ten thousand kinds.
Unless...
Unless the Chaos Bell itself was not as "righteous" as it appeared.
The thought made Taiyi's heart skip a beat. He thought of the dark-red layer around the bell's edges, the greedy devouring sensation it had shown while refining the baleful blood, and the chaotic, primal, almost savage aura within the bell spirit's consciousness just now.
Perhaps this bell had never been some "righteous artifact."
Perhaps it had always been something born from chaos itself, carrying chaos's disorder and greed. It had merely worn the skin of an "Innate Supreme Treasure," deceiving everyone.
Taiyi shook his head and suppressed the thought. There was no use thinking about that now. The important thing was what to do next. Where could he find ten thousand kinds of baleful energy? How would he acquire them? And once he did, how would he use them?
He rose and walked to the window, pushing it open. The night wind poured in, carrying the cool, damp vapor of the sea of clouds. In the distance, the lights of the Heavenly Court stretched endlessly, like an inverted river of stars.
After watching for a while, he suddenly remembered something.
If the Chaos Bell needed baleful energy, Pangu Hall might hold some clues. And Pangu Hall... was the ancestral land of the Witch Race, guarded by the Twelve Ancestral Witches. Going there was no different from charging into a dragon's den and tiger's lair.
But the system's next sign-in location was the outskirts of Pangu Hall.
Taiyi narrowed his eyes.
Was this not like being handed a pillow just as sleepiness struck? He already needed to go to Pangu Hall to sign in, so he could investigate clues about baleful energy along the way. Killing two birds with one stone.
It was just that this "one stone" might cost him his life.
He shut the window and returned to the couch. Instead of sitting, he stood there as his divine sense sank into his dantian, once again arriving before the Chaos Bell. The bell hung silently in the air, ancient and heavy, like a silent old man.
But Taiyi knew that silence was false.
"You want baleful energy," he conveyed through divine sense. "Fine. But you have to help me too."
The bell gave no response.
"I'll help you find baleful energy and restore you. You must help me too—help me grow stronger, help me survive." Taiyi continued, his tone calm but carrying a ruthless edge. "The calamity is coming. I need enough power to go to those places and find what you need."
This time, the bell trembled lightly.
Very lightly, as though nodding.
Taiyi smiled, though the smile was somewhat bitter. What was this? A transaction? Or symbiosis? He did not know. But he understood one thing: from this moment onward, he and this bell were truly bound together.
Just as he was thinking this, footsteps sounded beyond the door.
They were light, yet steady, approaching the bedchamber one step at a time. Taiyi's heart stirred. He withdrew his divine sense from his dantian and straightened his robes. The footsteps stopped outside the door, followed by three knocks.
"Taiyi."
It was Di Jun's voice.
Taiyi went to open the door. Di Jun stood outside, not dressed in court robes but in simple dark-gold casual attire, his hair loosely tied back. He was empty-handed, without even a food box.
"Brother?" Taiyi stepped aside to let him in.
Di Jun entered, his gaze sweeping over the bedchamber before settling on the open Calamity Survival Record atop the small table beside the couch. He walked over, lowered his head to look at it, but did not touch it before raising his head again.
"I heard you haven't left your room these past two days?" Di Jun asked.
"Yes, I've been regulating my breath," Taiyi said. "After returning from the Sun Star, I need to consolidate my cultivation."
Di Jun nodded and sat beside the couch. Taiyi closed the door and sat opposite him. For a while, neither brother spoke. The bedchamber was so quiet that they could hear the faint crackling of the candle flame.
"I came tonight," Di Jun finally said, "because there is something I want to ask you."
"Go ahead."
"The Chaos Bell..." Di Jun paused. "Has something gone wrong with it?"
Taiyi's heart jumped, but his expression remained unchanged. "Why do you ask?"
"Bai Ze came to see me the day before yesterday. He said the heavenly secrets showed that the aura of a supreme treasure within the Heavenly Court was changing." Di Jun looked at him. "At first, I thought it was the River Diagram and Luo Script, but after making deductions, I discovered it was not. Further deductions pointed to the Chaos Bell."
Taiyi fell silent.
"Taiyi," Di Jun's voice deepened, "I am your brother. If something is wrong, do not hide it from me."
"I'm not hiding anything." Taiyi sighed. "There have been some changes, but they are not bad. The Chaos Bell... seems to be awakening."
"Awakening?"
"Yes, the bell spirit." Taiyi said, "Before, this bell was like a dead object. It possessed only power, no spirituality. But recently, I can sense that something inside it is waking up."
Di Jun frowned. "The awakening of an Innate Supreme Treasure's artifact spirit should be a good thing. But the change in aura Bai Ze deduced carried a hint of... evil."
Evil.
Taiyi understood that it was likely the influence of the baleful blood and baleful energy. But he could not say that, at least not yet.
"Something may have gone slightly wrong during the refinement process," he chose to say, half-truthfully. "The Chaos Bell is no ordinary artifact. Refining it comes with risks. But I can control it, so do not worry."
Di Jun stared at him for a long time before slowly nodding. "As long as you know what you are doing. Just remember—no matter what happens, do not let the artifact turn the tables and become your master. You are the Eastern Emperor, not a slave to the bell."
His words were harsh, but Taiyi heard the concern within them. He smiled. "I know."
Di Jun rose to his feet. "I'll be going back. Prepare yourself for the lecture at Zixiao Palace."
"Alright."
As he saw him to the door, Di Jun suddenly stopped and glanced back at him. "Taiyi, the calamity is approaching. Be careful in all things. Some powers... are best left untouched if possible."
With that, he opened the door and walked out.
The door closed softly behind him. Taiyi stood inside, staring at it for a long time without moving.
The candlelight cast wavering shadows across the wall.
He knew what Di Jun feared—he feared Taiyi would take shortcuts, that he would touch things he should not, that he would pay a price he should not for power.
But once some paths were taken, there was no turning back.
He returned to the couch and sat cross-legged once more. His divine sense sank into his dantian, where the Chaos Bell hovered silently. The sun patterns on its surface flickered between brightness and darkness with his breathing.
Like a heartbeat.
Like it was waiting for him to make a decision.
Taiyi watched it for a long while before slowly exhaling.
"Then let's go," he said inwardly. "Righteous or evil, price or no price—it does not matter. As long as I can survive, as long as I can protect those who must be protected, that is enough."
The bell trembled softly.
As if in reply.
Before you continue